Search form

You are here

And lead us not into temper tantrums

It takes a parish to make a family—with rambunctious toddlers—feel welcome.

The angelic little tot, so cute in her Sunday best, is letting out some not-so-cute cries from the pew behind you. Do you: a) smile sweetly to yourself, realizing baby Jesus probably made a few peeps at temple, too? Or: b) silently curse the wailing little cherub for interfering with your comprehension of the first reading?

Heidi Schlumpf, a former editor at U.S. Catholic, is an associate professor of communications at Aurora University in Aurora, Illinois and author of While We Wait: Spiritual and Practice Advice for Those Trying to Adopt. See more posts by Heidi Schlumpf

Created: Thursday, July 14 2011 5:00 AM

Father blogger

In Pope Benedict XVI’s message for last year’s World Day of Communications, he summoned pastors to make the most of today’s technology to foster dialogue, increase evangelization, and prompt catechesis.

Roxane B. Salonen is a writer living in Fargo, North Dakota. You can find her on her blog Peace Garden Mama (roxanesalonen.blogspot.com) and on Twitter @Peacegardenmama.

Business schooled: Experts weigh in on church management

Father Tom Sweetser, S.J., says it’s not in his capacity to reform the entire U.S. church, but he knows he’s making a difference in the scores of parishes where he has consulted. It is what he is able to do.

Similarly, in the wake of one wretched sexual abuse revelation after another, some of the most influential Catholics in the United States have come together to do what they are able to do. Where Sweetser is a David, they are collectively a Goliath. The National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management (NLRCM) formed out of an intial meeting in 2004.

Many nations under God: Multicultural liturgies

Parishes cross barriers of language and culture to make their Sunday celebrations more inclusive.

When Gini Eagen came to Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Stone Mountain, Georgia three decades ago, the parish had “a very white population,” she says. Now Eagen is the church’s pastoral associate, and things have changed. “We are today the Catholic Church I used to picture in my prayer life,” she says. “When you’re young and you hear that there are people all over the world saying the same prayers that you say, you can picture it, but this is the reality we can see on Sunday.”

Learn your lines: How parishes are preparing for the new Mass

It’s dress rehearsal time as parishes prepare for the new Mass.

It was last Advent season when Andy Hentz first heard his pastor talk about the new Latin-to-English translations coming to the Mass. But it wasn’t until Hentz, a mail carrier who reads Catholic magazines and listens to Catholic radio, read excerpts of the new texts on the Internet earlier this year that he realized how dramatic the changes will be.

Jeff Parrott is a reporter at the South Bend Tribune in South Bend, Indiana.

Sing a new song: New music for the new Mass

Anyone who’s seen The King’s Speech, about King George VI and his speech therapist, knows people don’t stutter when they sing. So will singing similarly help Mass-goers with the words of the new missal translation?

Composer Steven Warner says yes. Singing will keep people from slipping back into the familiar words of the old translation. He sings a demonstration of the new “The Lord be with you” and its response, “And with your spirit.”